India is the worldâ€™s largest arms importer. It aims to be a big weapons dealer

NEW DELHI â€” For more than a decade, India shopped around the world in search of a deal for more than $1 billion worth of helicopters to replace about 200 of its militaryâ€™s aging light-utility aircraft.

But in August, the new national-ist government surprised many when it abruptly scrapped the request for global bids to buy the helicopters in favor of manufacturing them in India instead.

In recent months, India has reversed two more proposals for buying transport aircraft and submarines and decided to make them at home. Itâ€™s part of an ambitious new push by Prime Minister Narendra Modiâ€™s government to foster a domestic arms industry, within a greater nationwide initiative Modi has called â€œMake in India.â€

India is the worldâ€™s largest buyer of weapons, accounting for 14 percent of global arms imports, almost three times as many as China.

Over the next seven years, India is likely to spend more than $130 billion importing arms, officials say, to upgrade its understocked, Soviet-era arsenal with modern weapon systems.

Indiaâ€™s military modernization can generate billions of dollars worth of business for American companies, but it also helps strengthen the nationâ€™s strategic role in the region â€” at a time when the Indian and U.S. militaries are conducting more and more joint exercises. The massive buying spree coincides with Indiaâ€™s growing border tensions with China and Pakistan, and the approaching drawdown of international forces from Afghanistan this year.

The United States has surpassed Moscow as Indiaâ€™s biggest arms supplier. In the past three years, India spent nearly $14 billion importing weapons, of which more than $5 billion worth were purchased from the United States. Russia was a close second, with a little more than $4 billion in arms sales to India.

Analysts say that closer defense ties between India and the United States are a key part of what both countries hope will be an improved relationship, and what President Obama has called â€œthe defining partnership of the 21st century.â€

But for American companies, working with India can be frustrating, and the country ranks low on the World Bankâ€™s global â€œEase of Doing Businessâ€ index. The slow pace of decision-making, a 49 percent limit on foreign investment in Indian defense firms and mandatory obligations to invest in local defense manufacturing remain irritants for American businesses.

Indiaâ€™s fiercely independent foreign policy stance and its reluctance to fully embrace the United States as an ally often have hindered a full strategic alliance.

Now, Modi wants to upend -Indiaâ€™s arms-importer tag and turn the country into not only a defense manufacturer but also a major weapons exporter, much like China has become in the past several years.

â€œWe dream of making India strong enough to export defense equipment to the world,â€ Modi said in August after christening Indiaâ€™s largest home-built naval warship. â€œInstead of having to import every little defense hardware, we want India to become an exporter of these equipment over the next few years.â€

To realize this goal, the government removed the laborious license requirements on almost 60 percent of the defense products for private manufacturing companies. Earlier this year, the government raised the limit on foreign investment in the defense industry from 26 percent to 49 percent to encourage more partnerships with foreign investors.

â€œWe want that the global defense companies should come to India not merely to sell to us but also to manufacture here and export to other countries,â€ said Amitabh Kant, secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in New Delhi.

But that still may not be enough to bring critical defense technologies to India, foreign defense companies say.

â€œQuantitatively, raising the cap from 26 percent to 49 percent is a step in the right direction,â€ said Pratyush Kumar, president of Boeing India, which has secured -two-thirds of the defense trade with the United States. â€œQualitatively, nothing changes because it doesnâ€™t give control to the foreign investor.â€

Analysts say India has speeded up defense decisions.

The United States and India have hastened discussions since May on specific projects for co-production, such as antitank guided missiles, carrier-based aircraft launching systems and unmanned aerial vehicles, said Rahul S. Madhavan, director of aerospace and defense policy at the U.S.-India Business Council in Washington.

â€œThese are not offers that come every day,â€ he said. â€œIndia is now almost on par with NATO countries if you look at the kind of defense technology that are being offered by the U.S.â€

But critics say India is being torn by two competing goals: the nationalistic aspiration to produce weapons locally and the urgent need to fix the crippling shortages in the military.

The armed forces are desperate for new helicopters, submarines, combat jets and minesweepers, but even its tanks do not have enough shells. Soldiers are demanding lightweight bulletproof vests, assault rifles, night-vision equipment, combat boots and helmets.

In the past decade, key decisions on military acquisition have been delayed. Analysts call former prime minister Manmohan Singhâ€™s two terms â€œthe lost decadeâ€ for Indiaâ€™s defense sector.

â€œWe lost a decade when absolutely nothing moved,â€ said Arun Prakash, a retired navy chief. â€œThe last government blacklisted so many defense companies just at the hint of wrongdoing that the military was left with almost no sources to buy from. Purchases are put on hold, investigations go on interminably or are just forgotten. That has been really damaging to the armed forces.â€

Officials say the government is likely to overhaul the policy of mandatory obligations to invest in India and align it closely with Modiâ€™s manufacturing drive.

Despite the push, many defense experts say India is not ready to make a giant leap like Chinaâ€™s â€” from being the largest arms importer in 2006 to becoming the worldâ€™s sixth-largest defense exporter by 2011.

â€œBecoming a defense exporter is a noble aspiration but it will take a lot of doing,â€ Prakash said. â€œGiven the current state of our defense research and industrial base, it is not something that will happen overnight.â€

Re: India is the worldâ€™s largest arms importer. It aims to be a big we

The article is correct that there are two major challenges in increasing local defence production -
a. only few companies have the technology that India needs. It is not an exactly buyer's market. Political considerations are still the trump card.
b. The level of technological development in India itself is a barrier. Every piece of machinery cannot be imported. A lot of machinery will have to be made in India. The defence services are the biggest blocking factor in development of local industry. For example, they want weapons which are at par or even better than Western arms. India does not have the technology to produce Western arms. India needs to design and develop. These weapons have to be developed according to local conditions and local knowledge base.
c. Exporting weapons will be possible ONLY for locally developed weapons. The highly politicised field of defence production is not exactly a cakewalk. Mr Modi will also learn that in due time. However India does have its sphere of influence, and India can export a sizable amount of weapons if proper conditions are created. Countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and several countries in central Asia will be ready buyers.

India should decrease its arms import and consume its budget of education in country.

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Yes we are reducing import and making things on our own also through TOT, cuz India CAN!!!

THe person from the land of blowing up schools and children is preaching 'education' to India, who has

(NEws from your own land)

ISLAMABAD:

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisationâ€™s (Unesco) Education for All Global Monitoring (EFAGM) report has revealed dismal statistics on Pakistanâ€™s state of education.

According to the report, launched at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad on Thursday, about a quarter of the 19.75 million children in Pakistan aged five to nine are out of school. If the age bracket is increased to include adolescents, then about 25 million are not enrolled in school, out of a total school-going population of about 45 million.

The article is correct that there are two major challenges in increasing local defence production -
a. only few companies have the technology that India needs. It is not an exactly buyer's market. Political considerations are still the trump card.
b. The level of technological development in India itself is a barrier. Every piece of machinery cannot be imported. A lot of machinery will have to be made in India. The defence services are the biggest blocking factor in development of local industry. For example, they want weapons which are at par or even better than Western arms. India does not have the technology to produce Western arms. India needs to design and develop. These weapons have to be developed according to local conditions and local knowledge base.
c. Exporting weapons will be possible ONLY for locally developed weapons. The highly politicised field of defence production is not exactly a cakewalk. Mr Modi will also learn that in due time. However India does have its sphere of influence, and India can export a sizable amount of weapons if proper conditions are created. Countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and several countries in central Asia will be ready buyers.

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Moreover the shift from the largest arms importer to a defense exporter is very harmful for India, overall speaking.

Now India's no.1 supplier is the US, no.2 Russia, followed by France/Italy probably. Your ties with Russia certainly are dwarfed with reduced purchases. Imagine IF u get self reliant in defence equipment & tech one day (to a great extent), your orders will dry up for Lockheed Martin, BAE, Thales, Agusta Westland and so on, your importance will decline for those exporters (and military industrial complexes at large) as well as those states backing them. Furthermore u'll be deemed as a threat rather than a client when even going as far as to compete in the global arms market!

U actually have been paying to maintain a sound relationship with the West + Russia by means of procurement. Your shift will certainly hurt this bond, by paying likely less for the allegiance. Your gains in indigenous sourcing won't make up for the loss in the strategic partnership.

Moreover the shift from the largest arms importer to a defense exporter is very harmful for India, overall speaking.

Now India's no.1 supplier is the US, no.2 Russia, followed by France/Italy probably. Your ties with Russia certainly are dwarfed with reduced purchases. Imagine IF u get self reliant in defence equipment & tech one day (to a great extent), your orders will dry up for Lockheed Martin, BAE, Thales, Agusta Westland and so on, your importance will decline for those exporters (and military industrial complexes at large) as well as those states backing them. Furthermore u'll be deemed as a threat rather than a client when even going as far as to compete in the global arms market!

U actually have been paying to maintain a sound relationship with the West + Russia by means of procurement. Your shift will certainly hurt this bond, by paying likely less for the allegiance. Your gains in indigenous sourcing won't make up for the loss in the strategic partnership.

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That is not the case, economic and strategic partnership are different !!

India is a strong country, with the rise of India , more and more nations wants to build strategic partnerships !!

That is not the case, economic and strategic partnership are different !!

India is a strong country, with the rise of India , more and more nations wants to build strategic partnerships !!

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Oh? ? u aspire to be a weapons dealer now. How will your assumed "partners" continue to sell u high-end equipment and tech. to nurture a competitor, who'll vie for the same defence market share, rather than stay on the receiving end as before?

Oh? ? u aspire to be a weapons dealer now. How will your assumed "partners" continue to sell u high-end equipment and tech. to nurture a competitor, who'll vie for the same defence market share, rather than stay on the receiving end as before?

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We certainly do not walk the chinese path of steal, pirate and build copies of the existing weapons.

India goes for JV's, most of the countries are willing to share tech with India companies and benefit from low costs in India.

India is in the process of establishing strong defense industry, Once our firms get enough experience India will start producing its own weapons for export.

Oh? ? u aspire to be a weapons dealer now. How will your assumed "partners" continue to sell u high-end equipment and tech. to nurture a competitor, who'll vie for the same defence market share, rather than stay on the receiving end as before?

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Its better than Stealing from a country and selling it to another country.

When countries come together for JV, India can give cost effective manufacturing with quality. (Unlike your produce, where PLA manufactures everything for other countries and not for own use)
You must have read the information on the kind of tie-up SoKo plans to have with India.Its more broad and technically sensible and complicated.
India has a stong intellectual base and thats the strength of India. Once the necessary investments are made, India will be viable hub for technology produce.

Learn, Learn and Learn You learn very little from copying and stealing!!!